Movie Shorts

Copyright © 2004 Twentieth Century Fox.

Abandon: Is there a good Katie Holmes movie? If so, this isn't it. Neither is Batman Begins. DVD.

Batman Begins: A lot of money was spent on Batman Begins, and it shows. But do we want the story of a superhuman vigilante who dresses like a bat taken so seriously? The Xtreme violence and Xtreme sound effects add to our cultural ADD.

Barcelona: The second movie from Academy Award Nominated, Writer, Director, Producer Whit Stillman holds up well after more than a decade. Stillman, who has been described as a WASPy Woody Allen, writes very talky movies. They're a litmus test for intelligence on the part of the viewer: how unusual for Hollywood. DVD.

Bewitched: Why would anyone go see it? I didn't.

Bourne Supremacy: I disliked the original Bourne movie. It was a purely misanthropic thriller, with no insight into its great pessimism. The sequel is directed by an independent director who deemphasizes that part of the story (it's still there), while visually distracting us with exciting camerawork and editing: the results kept me glued to the screen. New techniques were invented for some of the most exciting chase scenes filmed. They're described on the DVD.

Cousin Bette: Balzac, Jessica Lange, Elisabeth Shue. That may sound good, but Cousin Bette isn't. The director manages to coax a bad performance out of one of our best actresses, Jessica Lange. Elisabeth Shue's performance is worse: she's usually a good actress, but when asked to sing, dance and be sexy, her singing and dancing does her in. Balzac's complicated story is too complicated to be compressed into a feature-length movie. DVD.

The Day After Tomorrow: Global warming fast freezes Manhattan, with Jake Gyllenhaal stuck in Carrere & Hastings's New York Public Library. Watch it on a hot day when you want to know what it would look like if the world's largest tsunami hit New York - the computer graphics are worth the price of entry. Why is Gyllenhaal supposed to be a star? DVD.

Dukes of Hazzard: Believe it or not, someone told me this is a funny movie. Instead, it's another example of how wrong a big-budget Hollywood movie can be. The screenplay and dialogue are unworthy of professionals. The three leads barely act: Jessica Simpson is young and has a great trainer, but she is least sexy when she most tries to be. (You can judge for yourself here.)

National Treasure: Yes, I've been watching adventure movies. We've watched over 250 DVDs from Netflix, so except for new movies, the most obvious choices for what to watch are just about gone. Anyway, National Treasure is The DaVinci Code for Dummies. Entertaining if you want a mindless hour and a half. But why does anyone hire Nicholas Cage to play a hero, let alone a romantic hero? DVD.

The Pirates of Penzance: We watched a poor-quality recording of a weak Joe Papp / Public Theater / Shakespeare-in-the-Park performance of the Pirates of Penzance. I suppose Papp was refreshing in the 60s, but an awful lot of the Public Theater productions feel more like tired old 60s productions than something fresh. After all, we're in the 21st century now. This Pirates adaptation was made in the early 1980s. DVD.

Seinfeld: It's not a movie obviously, but it's still one of the best television shows, and still funny, if you haven't OD'd on the reruns on cable. We don't have cable, which in Manhattan means we don't have TV. So I'm enjoying the DVDs. Not that there's anything wrong with that. "It's a show about nothing." No soup for you! Serenity Now!!